Adebayor saves the team and me!

Well after a late goal on Sunday to give West Ham a win it was a late winner for us in a controversial game at Goodison Park last night. Emmanuel Adebayor is my new hero as he rose to score a header from a corner, of all things, and save me the agony of listening to the two muppets commentating on BBC Radio Merseyside. Jesus they were hard work.

The controversy came about when Andy Johnson thought he should have had a penalty and then Graham Poll sent off James McFadden for allegedly calling him a cheat. McFadden denied it saying that he thought Poll’s decision was ‘fucking shite’ which if you say it in a Scottish accent with 40,000 people screaming and moaning you can see how it might have been misconstrued.

Still, Johnson did his very best to win another penalty tumbling in the box a couple of hundred more times but to no avail.

By the sounds of it we should have had a penalty of our own when Jeremie Aliadiere was brought down in the area. Even Stadler and Waldorf in the commentary box thought it was a penalty.

Beyond that I can’t really say too much more about it. It sounded like Mathieu Flamini had a very good game in midfield and Denilson got a few kicks. Mark Randall came on to make his debut and for more check out Goodplaya who was there last night.

It’s a shame that all the headlines will be about Graham Poll, again, and not the fact that our second string, if you like, beat Everton at home. In a way I can understand Everton’s frustration – we’ve been on the receiving end of Poll’s bullshit more than once so it’s nothing to do with favouritism or anything like that. It’s entirely to do with Graham Poll being shit – summed up perfectly here – but them’s the breaks and any sympathy I had or could have is obliterated by having to listen to those commentators.

They castigated Poll for the sending off despite having no idea what McFadden might have said then at half time the ‘ex-pro’, whoever he was, tore into Poll for being a crap ref and how he always has to be the centre of attention. Then he said he hoped Poll evened things up in the second half by sending off an Arsenal player. What a fucking moron. Anyway, thanks again Ade, you saved me!

Still no word from Arsene Wenger as he once again refused to speak to the press after the game. The news emerged yesterday that both he and Alan Pardew are to be charged by the FA for ‘improper conduct‘ and they have until November 23rd to reply to those charges. Tomorrow’s pre-Liverpool press conference is going to be interesting provided AW doesn’t send along a native American to attend for him or something.

The charges are absolute nonsense, if you ask me. A storm in a teacup has been blown out of all proportion by Sky and the media. No, it wasn’t great but it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as they’re making it out to be. After a weekend when two players from two different clubs were hit by coins thrown from the crowd (one of those clubs being Everton another reason why it’s hard to feel sympathy for them) the fact that they’ve made so much out of the nothing incident between Wenger and Pardew shows that Sky, the tabloids and the poxy FA have their priorities as straight as Graham Norton.

So into the next round we go, no doubt we’ll draw Chelsea away or something like that. Southend at home would be nice though so the ‘kids’ can play in front of our own fans and have a good game against a team that is obviously far better than Manchester United.

In other news, and there’s very little, Cesc’s dad has been talking about how Teddy Sheringham is old enough to know better after his scrap with the Catalan midfielder on Sunday. He also says Cesc needs to be a little less ‘loco’ sometimes, that Arsenal need to stand up the physical teams a bit more and gives another example of how level headed the young man is. When he signed his new deal he didn’t have a big party. He just stayed at home, ate some pa amb tomàquet and drank an extra big glass of Vichy Catalan.

And that’s that. Tomorrow we have the arsecast which includes an interview with Perry Groves, a competition from classicfootballshirts.co.uk and much, much more. Well, possibly just much, not much, much. Or even simply more. No muches at all.

Until then.

Everton preview, Perry on the arsecast!

It’s Everton tonight in the Carling Cup a good chance for some first teamers to get a run out and some ‘fringe’ players will have the chance to show what they can do.

It’ll be all Swiss in the centre of defence with Djourou and Senderos teaming up together. Senderos is particular is determined to win back his first team place and there are many who would suggest his leadership is something we could be missing. Certainly his aerial presence at corners might have helped break down Everton and other teams that play like they do. I expect because they’re at home and not facing the first team they won’t be as defensive.

Theo Walcott will start, as will Adebayor, Flamini, Aliadiere and Denilson, I’d imagine. Fran Merida could be on the bench too. Young Englishman Mark Randall, who was brought on the pre-season tour of Austria, could figure and he’s just waiting for his chance and learning from the players we have at the club already.

Sadly the game is not on TV anywhere and I don’t know if there are any streams. It’ll be a night by the radio, that’s if it’s even on the radio. After what happened against West Ham I’d imagine our approach tonight will be full-blooded, at least. It could be a good game.

We’ll hear from Arsene Wenger post-game and no matter what happens I’m sure all the questions will be about the events at Upton Park. Tomorrow should be an interesting day.

I managed to have a chat last night with Perry Groves for Friday’s arsecast. What a very nice bloke he was and you can hear about his book, how it got written, his thoughts on Ashley Cole and why his big arse didn’t fit into those tight shorts we used to wear back then. Remember to do your part though. We have to make sure that Perry’s book ‘We all live in a Perry Groves world‘ sells more copies than Cuntley Cunt’s turgid effort so order now or get down to your local bookshop.

Some transfer speculation yesterday linked with Le Mans keeper Johann Pele.

Yesterday was a landmark day for Arseblog. The 500,000th arse, or comment, was left by ‘Eight’ who is in league with Satan himself it seems. That is a huge number of comments even for a blog as old as Arseblog so thank you all for your wit and wisdom (you may replace this with two adjectives of your choice) over the years. It’s much appreciated. Mostly.

Right then, talk to you all tomorrow.

Still no word from Wenger. Thoughts on Captain Thierry.

Still no word from Arsene Wenger in the wake of Sunday’s events which is a bit surprising, I have to say. The only comment from inside the club came from Chairman Peter Hill-Wood who played down what happened. He said:

I don’t intend to say anything to Arsene. I think it is a very minor incident. No more than that.

Too true and it’s being blown out of all proportion, I think. Yes, it was unusual to see any manager let alone Arsene Wenger react like that but in the grand scheme of things it’s nothing much. Pardew acted like a cunt, Wenger reacted. The only thing I would say is that people are far too quick to overlook the reasons why Wenger might have reacted like that. After 10 years in the job without anything like this and similar incidents in the past what was different this time around? Perhaps we’ll never know.

Some reports suggest that the two managers face disciplinary action, probably because of the Sky hype. They’d be much better off spending their time looking for the coin throwers. Cesc Fabregas and Jens Lehmann also face action for incidents involving Teddy Sheringham. Cesc could face a ban for some really light ‘punches’, and they are to punches what midgets are to real people, to Sheringham’s midriff while Jens went crazy with his trusty water bottle again squirting Chief Cuntingham in the face. Pah, que sera sera.

However rubbish Cesc’s punches were and however juvenile Jens’ squirting antics are it’s a whole lot better than seeing Thierry Henry walk off the pitch trying to put his arms around Sheringham (thanks to Simon for pointing out this clip which shows he wasn’t laughing and joking with him). Some people are saying he shouldn’t be captain and they may have a point, to an extent, but I don’t think simply changing the captain will do much positive. Firstly there’s the issue of taking it away from him. He is proud of being captain and it would hurt and humiliate him. Secondly, I don’t think leadership on the pitch has to come solely from the captain. There are other players who can add to that. The most obvious candidate, in my view, is Philippe Senderos who has that natural leadership quality that Henry doesn’t have. We don’t need to take away the captaincy for those players to step up though.

What I would like to see is more fire from Thierry. He said the other day he was driven by anger. I want to see the anger before the game, during the game and, if things go wrong, after the game. There’s all the time in the world to be a playful gentleman at the final whistle. And that’s the thing, Thierry Henry is just a genuinely nice guy. He’s not a cunt, he’d never react to someone like Roy Keane did to Patrick Vieira in the tunnel, he’d be more likely to try and break it up so people’s expectations of his behaviour need to bear that in mind.

He’s got to stop trying to be everyone’s friend on the pitch though. We need him to remember the anger that motivated him in the past. We need to put him in a chair and show him Graham Poll during the Newcastle game, Stefan Henchoz handballing in the FA Cup final, various other incidents that have fired him up. We need to tell him that even though he’s a nice guy on the pitch the rest of the fuckers are still going to make Ronaldinho player of the year because they don’t see what an on-form Thierry Henry can do for us week in week out season after season after season.

We also need to use him in a system that gets the best out of him and that’s 4-4-2. 4-5-1 is an experiment gone too far now. People will say we’d be too lightweight in midfield against the likes of Bolton but we’ve beaten Bolton and nearly everyone else before playing that system. If we need to be more physical then we play a big, strong, go fuck yourself back four that can cope with whatever’s thrown at it.

We do not see the best of Thierry playing 4-5-1. It’s like being married to Angelina Jolie and making her wear Nora Batty style bloomers. We don’t have a player who can naturally play the wide left position in that formation either. Robin van Persie is a striker and should be playing there. He too is wasted in the 4-5-1 so let’s temper the criticism of Henry, and I’ll be the first to say he’s not playing well and can do better, and judge him when he’s playing the formation that suits him and the way we expect him to play.

Anyway, with a game tomorrow against Everton we have to hear from the boss sooner or later. I suspect he’ll be reluctant to go into too much detail about Pardew thought.

Ahead of that game Phil Neville says Arsenal should have shown more respect to Everton after their 11 men behind the ball tactics at Ashburton Grove the other week. He says:

I’ve played against teams with men behind the ball who play counter-attack football. And you’ve got to play that way if you want to have any joy at the Emirates Stadium.

Someone should tell him that in order to be a counter-attacking team you actually need to counter-attack and not hoof the ball as far upfield as you can. A full preview of the Carling Cup game tomorrow.

Just another quick mention for Perry Groves’ book ‘We all live in a Perry Groves world‘. The campaign to ensure his book sells more than Ashley Cole’s got a mention in the Sunday Independent here in Ireland this week. It said ‘Arsenal supporters on the internet’ rather than Arseblog but never mind. All things going well Perry should be appearing on this week’s arsecast (in association with classicfootballshirts.co.uk) and as usual if you have any questions or points for discussion you can email arsecast@[remove]arseblog.com

And that’s that.

Wenger furious, we need to be furious too

A sucker punch gave West Ham a 1-0 win over Arsenal yesterday which, despite the fact we didn’t play very well, they certainly didn’t deserve. Marlon Harewood scored the goal with about 3 minutes to go. Mathieu Flamini won the ball from Etherington, Etherington fouled him to get it back and eventually played it across the box. Gael Clichy went to sleep and not even Harewood could miss from there.

After Pardew, quite rightly, celebrated the West Ham goal, came over and said something to Arsene Wenger who reacted to whatever was said. I’m sure whatever Pardew said it wasn’t “Jolly bad luck, Arsene!” and whatever it was it was enough to make Wenger, already frustrated by the penalty decision and perhaps the foul on Flamini in the build up to their goal, react and the two managers had to be separated by the fourth official. Some people have said Wenger should have shown more class but it’s the sort of thing I’d expect from any manager who has seen a stone wall penalty turned down – knowing that because your team isn’t performing it’s probably going to be your best chance at a goal – then see a player fouled in the build up to a goal then have some witless cunt like Pardew get in your face about it.

Pardew said afterwards he was just celebrating the goal and nothing was said but there’s no doubt in my mind he said something. Anyone who has watched Arsene Wenger for the last 10 years knows he would not react like that to somebody simply celebrating a goal, no matter how irritating they were about it. Why would Pardew apologise if all he did was celebrate a goal? I’m sure it will come out eventually. In retrospect though I’m sure the boss would shake hands at the final whistle although he might spit on his palm before accepting the hand offered to him.

Oh, and let me just mention that cunt Richard Keys on Sky. Afterwards he was gibbering on like the fucking chimp he is to Jamie Redknapp, who is as insightful and intelligent as a shoe, about how the FA would surely be looking at this to see what charges might be brought. Incredible. What happened between Pardew and Wenger is hardly worthy of FA charges. Sky can’t wait to get the them involved though, and no doubt they’ll show the incident over and over again to make sure they have to do something about it, but they don’t make so much as a two second mention of the fact that some scumbag West Ham fan threw something at Robin van Persie. Does than not also merit an FA investigation? Not according to Sky but then that’s no surprise.

Nothing they do is a surprise. I watched Sp*rs beat Chelsea for the first time in 345 years yesterday evening and again Keys showed what a class act he was. After they came back from the commercials his first comment was not about how well Sp*rs played, and they did play well, and what a good victory it was for them. Instead it was something along the lines of ‘Well, after a tough game in Barcelona during the week and playing for 30 minutes with 10 men here you have to say that it was fantastic from Chelsea’.

Now, obviously I’m no Sp*rs fan but credit where it’s due. Comments like that and ignoring things like the van Persie incident do little to dispel the idea that some people at Sky have their own agendas for whatever reason you might like to speculate about yourself. And can you imagine what the reaction would have been to the tackle that could have broken Robin van Persie’s leg if it had been one of our players on one of theirs?

Arsenal left last night without any comment to the media which is unusual but not surprising. I know people are upset about the performance yesterday and obviously the result but I don’t think there’s too much wrong with us. Every high is over-hyped – like the Reading game – and every low is exaggerated. We dominated Everton, we dominated CSKA, we’d won 5 out of 6 in the Premiership before that and yesterday’s was the first really poor performance I can remember for some time.

We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that we’ve only lost as many games as Chelsea have this season. I have a feeling that what we’ve been lacking somewhat is a bit of a siege mentality. It was prevalent when we used to get red cards all the time. It was batten down the hatches stuff, everyone out there hates us but we don’t care. For me we’ve probably been too nice. Everyone loves the football we play when we get it right and that’s great but we’ve been missing something.

Sometimes it’s days like yesterday that create that little extra within the team, a spirit or a willingness to go the extra mile for your teammate. Perhaps the West Ham game and the sense of injustice around it and the shite that will inevitably follow will be positive for us in the long run. This could be like the ‘Battle of Old Trafford’ which created the unbeaten run. It’s time for some good old fashioned anger. Yeah!

What about us though? It wasn’t a good performance and to be honest I would love to see us revert to a more traditional 4-4-2 formation. For me you need a big, ugly strong cunt like Drogba for that to be really effective. Obviously Thierry Henry is not the same kind of player. When he’s foraging on his own up there he can’t receive the ball in the kind of space he’s been accustomed to. He knows he’s rarely going to win the headers against two centre-halves and it’s no wonder he looks unwilling at times. I’m not making excuses by any means, and I’d love to see Thierry look a bit more involved, but it’s just an explanation. I don’t think we get the best out of quality strikers like Henry and van Persie with that formation either.

Some of the boys looked tired as well. Cesc in particular looks like he could do with a bit of a rest. As well as that we weren’t helped by an utterly shite performance from Rob Styles. He could have red carded Jonathan Spector for his tackle on Robin van Persie which was deliberately over the top and designed to hurt. He booked Gael Clichy for competing a header, he booked van Persie for nothing and he made a huge mistake with the penalty. That’s not to say we would have won if we’d been given the penalty and I’m not suggesting he’s the reason we lost the game but when you see a referee perform that badly then it has to be highlighted. Out of 10 I give him meningitis, the cunt.

Anyway, the best thing to do is get this behind us, learn the lessons that need to be learned and get on with it. We’ve got a Carling Cup game midweek and I expect most of the ‘first XI’ will be rested for this. Players like Senderos, Aliadiere and Walcott will be looking to remind the boss of what they can do ahead of the Liverpool game next Sunday.

Perhaps we’ll hear from Arsene Wenger today but for now let’s just await the inevitable fall out and pomposity from shitehawk pundits and commentators.